Dolls and Tomatoes

One day I had Amelie shopping at Target, and I thought I'd stop by the dolls aisle just to do some preliminary research for her birthday. We have recently learned that she is in love with everything baby, doll and especially baby doll. When we got to the right aisle, she could not contain her excitement and joy. She almost jumped out of the cart. OF COURSE I could never capture her face just right, but let me tell you she was in love! You can at least see her impatience to get the dolls, and unwillingness to let go once in hand. (I have since given her her birthday present of a doll early, cause she just loves it so much!)






I have acquired a humongous amount of tomatoes, and was trying to wash and sort them one day so I could make them last. I guess I didn't notice that one had rolled onto the floor, and I thought I heard a big bite like from an apple or something. I looked down to see my little munchkin holding that giant thing in her 2 hands, taking big old bites of it. You may notice she also has tomato goo on her face, hands, running all down her shirt and pants. But it sure was adorable.



Man she's cute.

Opening the Heavens

I have been wanting to write this blog for sometime now, but life always gets away with me... or from me..? I feel... exposed writing more personal things like this in my blog, but always love reading similar things in others' so I'll go for it.

Anyway, a few months ago, I came across this talk in a friend's blog. It is entitled "Opening the Heavens" by Elder Yoshihiko Kikuchi in the August 2009 Ensign (an LDS magazine, for those of you who may not know.) For some reason, I felt very strongly about reading it and did so right away. It was all the things I had been looking for at this time in life, and some I didn't even know it. First, a very brief synopsis. The article talks about starting your day with a sort of devotional. This includes: Rise Early, Exercise a few minutes, Make yourself clean, Get ready for the day, Go to a quiet place, Kneel in prayer, Wait for inspiration (study scriptures/talks, ponder problems.) The promise is that if you do these things, you will feel the love of God more powerfully, be more in tune with His Spirit and have the heavens opened to you daily.

So, as I said, this was exactly the thing I had been needing in my life, and on various levels. I have been (my whole life) spotty with reading the scriptures, for example. I always respond to a talk or thought about scripture study, renew my intention to make it happen and then fall out of it shortly thereafter. Another one-I have been much more lazy this pregnancy for a few reasons and have tried and tried to get a regular exercise program going, but nothing successfully. I also just felt constantly tired, and as a result, more crabby in general. I never got quite as much done in the day as I'd liked. I never had any me time.

The wonderful, wonderful thing about this simple program is that it has more than met every single one of these unfulfilled needs in my life. I have been doing the "program" daily these past few months and have had amazing results. I now get up at 7:30 every day (I know-not "Rise Early" according to some of you, but it is early for me who has an infant on the verge of toddler and am almost 5 months pregnant.) I start with about 20-30 minutes of exercise (depending on how sore I am from previous days' exercises.) This might be yoga, a series of exercises from my pregnancy books, or a prego video. I then get ready for the day, then go out to the living room and say prayers. (Amie is still asleep, and Jeff is just going to sleep, so I have the whole quiet house to myself.) I have recently picked my personal scripture study back up during this time, but started by rereading every talk from April Conference before this past weekend's conference. (My stake issued a challenge to do so-it was so beneficial for me, too!) Now, I either have to fit breakfast into "Get Ready" time or eat while I study, cause I can't make it the full hour/hour and a half without food-Alisa's a hungry girl these days!
Some of you may recognize this as quite similar to the missionary morning regimen. The thing that has worked perfectly for me, is that it is structured but not strictly regimented. You know, I get to do whatever exercise feels good for that day, I can study talks or scriptures, and I don't always keep to that order of things, but do get them all in every morning before my little lovie gets up and takes my attention.

Now, to expand on the benefits that have come to my life. Of course, one of the best and most obvious has been the return of regular scripture study to my life. For some reason, I have always attempted to do this at night, and it just never keeps. Reading in the morning, I never miss a day, and I am alert and retain more since I have already gotten going that morning.
Rising early-since starting, I have given myself a bed time of 10:30-this is really no stretch. (Jeff leaves for work at 9 and Amie goes down at 9:30-although I'll be late tonight, cause this blog is longer than planned!) I straighten up the house before turning in, and still get a good half hour of winding down time to putz around however I want. If you noticed, this is actually 9 hours of sleep I'm getting every night-just what a pregnant woman needs. I am not nearly as tired or cranky as I was before-trying to stay in bed til the last second, catching every possible second of sleep, willing Amie to take naps so I could, etc.) Of course, she still wears me down, but I feel much better.
Exercising and getting ready-this has not only given me the wonderful benefit of regular exercise, but the surprise benefit of just feeling good when I start my day, dressed, awake, fed, spiritually fed. I get SO MUCH more done around the house each day. I have plenty of time to play around, run errands, read, veg with a movie-all after cleaning up the house and taking care of my daughter. It feels really great!

I am a little apprehensive about how I may continue this when little Alisa joins our family-at least for the first 2 months or so. It has not even been difficult so far to keep up the wonderful routine, but I know this wonderful girl will throw a wrench in it. In the meantime, I'm working hard to make it an indispensable habit in my life and know I'll have the Lord's support when I get there.

Now, I could keep going on, but I'm not sure I even want to read all this, so I'll close. I'm very grateful for a Heavenly Father who knows what we need when we need it most-even little things. I encourage you to read the talk and see if it doesn't fit your life.

It's a...

GIRL! It's no longer a brister, it's a sister!



I'd wanted to let you all decipher the ultrasound and figure out for yourselves, but as we were getting ready to go, the ultrasound tech said "Oops! I didn't print a picture of her bum!" Oh well.

The ultrasound went well today, they checked just about everything under the sun, and everything looks good and normal. Her measurements are also right on track. (This was the same with Amelie-I wonder when she started being small?)

At the moment, we're pretty sure she will be Alisa Danielle North. (Like A Lisa, not Alyssa. My sister thinks we should spell it Aleissa so people don't call her Alyssa, but I want a simple spelling. What do you think?) Alisa comes from Jeff's great grandma, Alice-we wanted to incorporate her, but weren't in love with the name Alice. Danielle comes from Jeffrey Daniel, of course! I never thought I'd be a naming-after kinda person, but we're laying them on pretty heavily so far! With some liberties, of course.

Anyway, we are very pleased it is a girl, since she and Amelie will be so close. they can be BFF and I won't even have to clean out the spare room! Yet. :)

Last few random summer events.

These are just a few fun things from this summer-ish that never made the blog.

This is from the cousin party we did a month or 2 ago. We went to the zoo, then had pizza at the park and the kids played in the fountain. (Amie wouldn't be left out!)


She snuck away like a bandit, taking the cups with her!


This one was a relaxing trip my family took to my husband's family's lake house. Amie was so tired, she fell asleep swimming in her tube on the lake. I deposited her in Jeff's hammock to finish her nap.



RIGHT when we got back from our cruise, Jeff had to rush off to do a flag ceremony for the Utes opening football game. It got us free tickets-Fun! Amie enjoyed it more than I thought she would, but we were so exhausted, we left in the third quarter. (We won, of course, but it was closer than it should have been!)

We also went to Raging Waters on Labor Day, but we never had the camera on us while Amelie was doing some super-adorable things. Another thing that was really fun, but when half of you works graveyards and the other half is creating another human being, your stamina suffers a bit. We stayed for maybe 4 hours, but it was worth it! (And that was long enough for us to get pretty darn sunburned.)

Amelie's 11 month latest and greatest.

Amelie's been hitting a lot of milestones lately, and has a few fun tricks as well. Here are some of the cute things my cute daughter is doing:

-When you say "say hi" she waves. When you say "say hello" she puts the phone (or whatever is in her hand) up to her ear.
-When you say "yay!" she claps her hands. She'll also do this whenever she sees others clapping, including on tv.
-When you ask her where her head is, she grabs it with both hands (usually scrunching up all her features.) Occasionally if she feels she needs more attention than she is getting at the moment, she'll grab her head and wait for the requisite applause.
-She now has 4 teeth! Well, 3 and the second top one is almost out. They took their sweet time, but then came all at once.
-She has somehow learned the keep away game. If you ask/tell her to give you something she's playing with, or try to grab it, she'll hide it behind her back. Sneaky.
-Her other sneaky thing is to do the run away crawl. She loves that.
-She also talks quite a lot, but still no real assigned meaning to words. Some frequenters are mama, dadada, owy, whoa and me. (Still woofs when she sees or hears a dog.)
-She's obsessed with crawling up stairs, probably because we don't have them... ok, really she'll climb anything she can. She has just barely started to try going down. She doesn't quite have it down yet, but she knows to reach for mom or dad's hand when she wants to try.
-Finally, she is aaaaaaaaalmost walking. She now has good balance, stands well, and can consistently take 2-3 steps before falling. She's gotten up to about 6 steps or so, but often she'll just stop. And of course, she cruises the furniture like a whiz. When she gets very interested, it'll be no problem.

Only one more month until she's a year old! We really can't believe it!

Catalina/Ensanada, I mean Cabo San Lucas, I mean Catalina/Ensenada, here we come!

There are bazilmillions of things I'd like to blog about just piling up, so I'm gonna jump right in on a few and give you the short versions. (If I'm capable.)

This "short" post is regarding our 2nd Anniversary! Aug 30, Jeff and I have been married 2 years. They've flown by so fast, but it feels like we've been together forever, of course. Many many months ago, we found a super-cheap cruise over our anniversary, so we booked it. 4 days on the Carnival Elation to Ensenada and Santa Catalina. Well, a few months after booking, we got a letter saying they shuffled all their itineraries, and the cruise leaving on our date is now a 5 day to Cabo. We could do that for no extra charge, or do our same cruise on a different day. Never ones to pass up a great opportunity (or a steal of a deal) we decided to go to Cabo. Totally psyched (and baby-less, I might add) we went to San Diego. (Insert a long, dramatic story here about a 2hr delayed flight and worries of missing the cruise. I'll spare you the details.) We got there in time, and immediately had a blast-lots of great food, games, food, shows, food and views.







Our first full day at sea, halfway down Mexico, the captain announces to the whole ship that because of Hurricane Jimena, we can not go to Cabo.


It will be exactly where we are supposed to be, exactly when we are supposed to be there. We'll go to Ensenada and Santa Catalina instead. This is a major bummer, but we decide to be quite happy about not being in a boat in a hurricane. Plus, we figure this is what we signed up for anyway, but with an extra day at sea, right? (Insert stories about obnoxious people complaining about NOT sailing to our deaths. Hearing their absurdities made it easier to be appreciative.) So, we end up having essentially 3 days on the ship... Now, I love cruises, but this was a bit much. By the time we rolled into Santa Catalina, I was among the first in line to get off! Even with not enough sleep. Catalina Island was beautiful, Jeff and I are determined to come back and vacation there someday. After seeing the sights, we soaked our feet only in the beachy ocean (so sad, I know, but there were bacteria warnings, and I figured that was not the souvenir I wanted to give my current unborn.) Some of the views:






(Note the sky: the hurricane-gray-clouds-of-doom on the left, and the California-fires-smoke-of-death on the right. Not the healthiest place to be at the moment.)




The next day, Ensenada! This is where Jeff and I cruised on our honeymoon, but we did an excursion, so we were happy just to walk through the city and buy cheap Mexican souvenirs. We got Amie the cutest dress and I got some jewelery-all well within our budget, I might add! We walked quite a bit, and with the hurricane humidity, it wiped ole preggo here out pretty quick. We went back to the ship after only a few hours. (But it sure was nice to get out.)






About a billion pounds later, our cruise was over, and it was almost pathetic how ready we were to go home and see our baby girl! (That little stinker got her first tooth while we were away!) But she appeared to have had a great week at grandma and grandpa's. Thanks to the many who pitched in to take care of her!!
Stay tuned for more "abbreviated" escapades.

Um.... (part 2)

So it's been a while since i've had the courage to venture out into the blogaverse. Pretty much a ton has happened since last time I wrote something. I've worked a whole bunch, like work go to court then go back to work only to go to court right after work then back to work then work a part time and now finally I'm home. Nikki is looking super cute as the old pregnancy develops. She is also working as a full time mom for our darling little Amelie who has learned a ton of new tricks, including pointing to her head (on command) clicking her tounge, standing more, trying to hide things when I try and take them from her, and putting the phone up to her ear. Work is going good working glendale (with all the gangsta foos) and loving it. That's pretty much it from me.
Peace out ya'll

My 26th!

This is pretty much how I felt for the entire span of birthday events.


So, my birthday encompassed a few days again this year, and again we spent too much money. For me, it started Friday, when Jeff came home and made me a HUGE breakfast. He brought a doughnut as a starter to keep me tied over. Then he made triple berry muffins, pancake sandwiches with eggs, ham and syrup, and hashbrowns. (He doesn't even really like eggs or hashbrowns... or muffins come to think of it.) He also gave me one present that morning, a book called Fatally Flaky-I've already read it and love it! It was super sweet, I know he was planning it for a long time.

So, then, Saturday the 1st, the real day, I went to sister breakfast at Mimi's Cafe again. (I'd been wanting to try Cracker Barrel breakfast, but my sister threw up last time she was there so no cigar.) I had brie crepes with hollandaise-good, but the broccoli was a little overpowering. I love Mimi's! It's french, but not so authentically french that you have no idea what to order there.

Then, I came home and spent some time with Jeff and Amelie, and opened some more presents. (Jeff was going to make me open one after every meal, but he gets too excited about surprises, so I got them all then.) He got me a cute watch, the movie Alex and Emma, a gorgeous little cube with the Christus etched into the middle and a coupon book from Amie. They were for things like 30 minutes of mommy time, courtesy of the Daddy Corporation. Pretty darn awesome. After that, we got ready and went to lunch at Zupa's and Chris joined us. Jeff wasn't over-the-top about going there but ended up really liking it. Since I was dying in the August heat in my AC-less car, we then went to find me some shorts to wear, and Chris offered to take me shopping for my birthday present. I ended up getting 3 shirts and a pair of shorts-my husband can't say no to himself when it comes to me. I love them all, though, so I'm pretty excited. From there, Chris took Amie home with her and Jeff and I had a few hours to kill before our dinner reservation. We got a small ice cream from Baskin Robbins and saw Monsters vs. Aliens at the dollar theater. Cute. ( I think I actually nodded off once, though. Prego can't make it through a whole day of on-the-go without a nap. From the movie, we went to our dinner reservation at Franck's. Most people don't know it exists, it's just around back of the Tuscany. The chef (Franck) is french and changes the menu-daily, if he wants. It was AMAZING. Like, really. My description won't even come close. We got french bread and a cheese plate for appetizer. Delicious, but there was one pretty moldy cheese that Jeff and I didn't finish. Then, I had the house salad and Jeff got the soup-Peach with goat cheese. I know, so weird, but it was literally the best soup I ever had! Our entrees were late, so they brought us a "palate cleanser" of lemon sorbet. Then our food came-Jeff got the peach soy brined chicken and lobster with pea purree and fried cauliflower, I got the pulled pork, beef and veal meatloaf with lavender-berry sauce and mashed potatoes (I left the asparagus alone. Still can't eat it.) They were beyond description. When Jeff tried his chicken, he immediately said "wow" and I actually thought to myself "Wow? That's all you got? And can it be that fantastic?" Then I tasted it, and before I realized it I immediately said "wow." It was almost like butter it was so perfectly cooked. And you can't even think of my meatloaf as anywhere in the ballpark of regular meatloaf. I highly encourage everyone in the world to eat there. Bring 70 bucks, though, at least. We got desserts-Jeff a chocolate tart and me the carrot cake-it was inside a cocoon of tall white-milk swirled chocolate shell with strawberries on top. I wanted to explode of course, but enjoyed every minute of it.


Of course, dinner on Sunday with the fam, and I got my requested homemade lasagna and a brownie-ice cream cake. (My mom is so creative, talented and tolerant when it comes to birthday cake requests.) Another excellent birthday meal! (There was also great sickness in my life that day, but we will not dwell on it.)
Monday was dinner with my in-laws fam. Homemade chowder bowls and chocolate cheesecake. Mmm!
Finally, on Wednesday, we went to the touring Cirque du Soleil show, Saltimbanco. I love Cirque and want to see all their shows. (Only 3 so far.) I thought it might not be as good as the others I've seen, cause what could they set up and take down over and over? It wasn't as flashy as La Nouba or Mystere, but it was still wonderful! To think what some people can do with just a few juggling balls (or 7.) Plus, the dancing, singing, acrobatics, mimery (best mime I've ever seen!) it was just perfect and Jeff loved it too, his first Cirque show.

And now, if you made it this far, you deserve an award! Many thanks to all who contributed to another great birthday!

4th, 24th and Lagoon

I thought that since my last long post was after the 4th that I included it, but I just realized I skipped it. In the morning, Amie and I went to the West Jordan parade (Jeff had just gotten off of work and was sleeping.) Even though we came right about time to start, I got an amazing parking space and good spot. The weather was perfect most of the parade-clouded over, then I had an umbrella and squirty fan for when the sun came out. Amie seemed to enjoy it again, all except for when the fire truck honked right in her face. (Have you ever noticed they are far louder than other emergency vehicles?)



Then, we went home and hung out for a bit before we headed over to a friend's for BBQ. That was fun, then Jeff had to run off to work again that night. Amelie and I stayed a bit and they set off fireworks. Then we all raced to catch fireworks at Murray park cause no one else noticed the time (though I mentioned it more than once.) We saw some on the way and some more there, but everyone pretty much just stayed in there own cars wherever they parked. Amie slept through pretty much all of them. The next day I remembered why I no longer stay up late.




For the 24th, Jeff had to work the parade in the morning (and somehow he got the longest post) then work again that night. So, our festivities consisted of a delicious lunch at the Porcupine and naps. After Jeff left, I was going to take Amelie out and show her the sparklers we had, but I turned the house upside down and couldn't find them. So, I didn't really get to do much of anything. We're looking forward to the days when Jeff has enough seniority to get more holidays off and we can go to more family activities, especially Delta.

Also, we went to Lagoon... again. But we thought it was worth it because we got in with PMAA (Police Mutual Aid Association) for $20 that included a big dinner. We had lots of family members come with us and I got to go on a fair number of rides and slides. It was very fun but I was completely exhausted by the end of the day. I couldn't have stayed another second.

Maybe not her either. :)

9 months! and 10 1/2 weeks!

I cannot believe my Amelie is 9 months old! She was supposed to go to the doctor this week, but we ended up taking her in last week. She had a red eye for days and we wanted to get it looked at-then we asked if they could do the whole shebang while we were already there. Luckily, they did. Since Amie wasn't acting sick, and wasn't pussing or anything, they first checked for a scratch. They put ultraviolet dye in her eye and turned on a blacklight. She was actually pretty good, and it was pretty cool to see. She just had a scratch on her eye that was healing by itself. She's doing well, of course. She's still in the high-30's, low-40's for height and weight. She actually moved UP the scale for head size-98th percentile! Poor little girl takes after her parents-shorty legs and giant head. As far as milestones, she's crawling like a maniac. Hands, and she pushes with her feet. She pulls up a lot, and cruises a little on the furniture. She tries to stand by herself without holding on, but it will definitely still be awhile. She says lots of dadada and mamama and ow and oh, but doesn't assign appropriate meanings to them, of course. She claps her hands whenever she sees others clapping or if you say "yay!" She still likes to try out her voice, and now has started trying out her facial expressions, too. Adorable! My favorite thing lately is when she's around dogs. At first, she was scared out of her wits! Now, after a little petting intervention, she doesn't cry, but anytime a dog is in the room, she stares at it and barks! It is so cute. She also has gotten quite adept at calling people on our cell phones, so if Jeff or I call you and say nothing... that's probably why. Apologies in advance.



And... I'm already almost 11 weeks along in pregnancy #2. Can't believe it-though it's much more tiring this time around, it's going by faster. Probably just cause I don't obsess over it as much as the first time. We had our first appointmenta few weeks ago, and with a stroke of luck we got to go back to our last doctor, Dr. Brown. She's crazy! But we love her. AND 2 of my other friends go to her. Plus, I want to deliver at IMC again, I really liked that hospital. Only a month or 2 before we can find out the gender! Anyway, here's the first (and only) picture of Brister so far. (Brother + Sister. Jeff came up with it...) Not as clear as Amie's, but still decipherable. The head is over to the right, and body bundled underneath.